Part 1 (2/2)
”You are always talking about Rustic the Gay.”
”I?” ingenuously answered the young girl, turning her candid face toward her mother and without betraying the slightest embarra.s.sment. ”If I frequently talk to you about him it is unintentional.”
”I believe you, my child. But how can you expect that any human medicine could cure me completely, when my distemper resists the relics? You might as well try to make me believe that any human power could return to me the dear little girl, who, alas! disappeared from our side ten years before the birth of your brother. Let us bow before the will of G.o.d!”
”Poor little sister! I weep over her absence, although I have never known her.”
”My poor little daughter could have taken my place near you. She would now be old enough to be your mother.”
A loud noise, interspersed with cries and proceeding from the street, interrupted at this point the conversation between Martha and her daughter.
”Oh! Mother,” exclaimed Anne with a shudder, ”it may be another penitent whom the mob is falling upon with insults and blows! Only yesterday, an unfortunate fellow whom they were pursuing in that way remained bleeding and half dead upon the street. His clothes were in shreds and his flesh not much better.”
”That's right!” answered Martha with a nod of her head. ”It was just! I like to see these penitents thoroughly punished. If they are penitents it is because they have been convicted of impiousness, or of lack of faith. I can not pity impious people.”
”But, mother, is not the penance that the church imposes upon them in expiation of their sins severe enough? They must walk bare-footed, with irons to their limbs, for two or three years, often longer, dressed in sack-cloth, their heads covered with ashes, and they are compelled to beg their bread, seeing that the sentence forbids them to work.”
”My child, these penitents, upon whom the mobs love to shower blows, should bless each wound that they receive. Each wound brings them nearer to salvation. But hark! The noise and the tumult increase. Open the window. Let us see what is going on in the street.”
Anne and her mother rose and hastened to the narrow window, through which Martha quickly put her head, while her daughter, leaning on her shoulder, hesitated to look out. Happily for the tender-hearted child it was not one of those savage hunts in which the good Christians took delight against the penitents whom they regarded as unclean animals. The narrow street, bordered with thatched wooden houses, like the one of Eidiol, offered but a strait pa.s.sage. A severe rainfall on the previous day had so soaked the earth that a heavy wagon, driven by two teams of oxen and loaded high with lumber, sank into the mud up to the hub of one of the wheels. Too heavy to be pulled out of the deep mud, the outfit completely blocked the pa.s.sage, and stood in the way of several knights, who were riding from the opposite direction, with Rothbert, the Count of Paris and Duke of France, and brother of Eudes, who had himself proclaimed King, in prejudice of Charles the Simple, the weak descendant of Charles the Great, who now, in the year 912, reigned over France.
Escorted by five or six knights Rothbert found his way blocked by the wagon which, despite all that its driver could do, remained motionless where it had stuck fast. The count, a man of haughty and flinty countenance, always armed with casque and cuira.s.s, together with iron leggings, thigh-pieces and gloves, as if marching to war, now rode a black horse. He hurled imprecations upon the wagon, the teams of oxen and the poor serf who drove them, and who, frightened by the threats of the seigneur, hid himself under the wagon. More and more enraged at the obstacle in his path, the Count of Paris called out to one of his men:
”p.r.i.c.k the vile slave with the point of your lance and force him to crawl out from under the wagon. p.r.i.c.k him in the chest; p.r.i.c.k him in the head. p.r.i.c.k hard!”
The knight alighted with his lance, and stooping to the ground sought to reach the serf, who, bent down upon his hands and knees, jumped back and to the sides in order to escape the point of the lance. The Frank grew nettled, began to blaspheme and was angrily prodding with his lance under the wagon, when unexpectedly he felt a severe blow dealt to his weapon and immediately saw a hook fastened to a long pole swung under the wagon, while a firm and sonorous voice cried to him:
”If the knights of the count have their lances, the skippers of Paris have their iron hooks!”
At the sight of the sharp iron and the sound of the threatening words, the knight leaped back, while Count Rothbert cried out, pale with rage:
”Where is the villain who dares to threaten one of my men?”
The hook disappeared immediately, and a moment later a tall lad of manly countenance, wearing a cloth coat and the wide breeches of the skippers of the port, jumped with one bound on top of the lumber with which the wagon was loaded, stood up boldly, holding in his hand the long iron-tipped pole with which he had defended the teamster against the knight, and challenged the question of the count:
”He who prevented a poor serf from being struck through with lance thrusts is I! My name is Guyrion the Plunger. I am a skipper of Paris. I fear neither you nor your men!”
”My brother!” screamed the tender Anne, affrighted and leaning out of the window; ”for the love of G.o.d, Guyrion, do not defy the knights!”
The impetuous young man, however, taking no notice of the fears of his sister and mother, continued to defy the count's men from the height of the wagon, while brandis.h.i.+ng his redoubtable weapon:
”Who wishes to try the a.s.sault?” and half turning toward the horror-stricken serf who had crouched behind the wagon, ”Save yourself, poor man; your master will come himself and reclaim his oxen.”
The slave promptly took the wise advice and disappeared. The Count of Paris, on the other hand, ever more enraged, shook his iron gauntleted fist at Guyrion the Plunger, and yelled furiously at his men:
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